TOGETHER: Engage all Texans with Christ’s gospel

Posted: 10/12/07

TOGETHER:
Engage all Texans with Christ’s gospel

Jesus interrupted the parade and called the despised Zacchaeus out of the tree. He invited himself to go to his house. “Why would he go home with a cheating tax collector?” the crowds murmured?

Jesus gives his own answer when he explains to Zacchaeus, who clearly is touched and changed by the interest Jesus takes in him, “The Son of Man came to seek out and save the lost” (Luke 19:10).

Executive Director BGCT Executive Board

It’s time for us to interrupt our own parade and see the people in the “trees” around us, the people who do not know Jesus but need him in their lives.

The Baptist General Convention of Texas will help us do this by holding the new “Engage: Evangelizing Texas Conference” Jan. 13-15, 2008, at Lake Pointe Church in Rockwall, near Dallas. Evangelism Director Jon Randles and his staff are praying and preparing for this special gathering.

Engage will be for everyone who is serious about making evangelism a renewed priority in our churches. But we also need to bring others from our churches who need to have the fires of evangelism lit in their hearts.

There are people like Zacchaeus all around us, and often, we are not seeing them. Many times when we do, we do not know how to reach out to them with the good news of Jesus Christ in a way that will make sense to them in today’s world. Engage will help us do this.

If you can’t make it to Rockwall, attend one of the five regional Engage XP events with a group from your church. Engage XPs will be held Feb. 10 in El Paso, Feb. 11 in Belton, Feb. 12 in Kingwood, Feb. 13 in San Antonio and Feb. 14 in Midland.

How are you doing in helping people know how to be prepared to die so the final journey of life ends in the Father’s presence? Do you pray every day that you will be alert to give a faithful witness to Christ?

Pastors, do you make sure the gospel is heard clearly every Sunday? Deacons and Bible study leaders, do you have a list of people for whom you pray every day that they will be open to the salvation Christ brings? Do you know how to help your Sunday school students make a personal commitment to Christ? As you go about your work each day, do you remember that every person you work with is a person whom God loves and for whom Jesus died?

Engage will give us a special chance to face such questions squarely. We will have time to fellowship, to share fresh ideas for evangelism and to pray for a Holy Spirit revival in our state.

We Baptists are a diverse people, but we all are one in this desire to reach people for Christ. Engage will provide a chance for us to express that oneness and prepare to spread out around the state as witnesses.

Details on the conferences are available on the BGCT website at www.bgct.org/evangelism.

We are loved, and more people in Texas need to know.

Charles Wade is executive director of the Baptist General Convention of Texas Executive Board.